"Dust of Autumn, set in western New York, mostly in a high school in the Buffalo area, involves a young woman and her fixation with her English teacher. Jennifer Davis is a nice, unusually intelligent young woman who happens to have an alter ego she calls Maleeva, and Maleeva is not nice. Maleeva acts as Jennifer’s protector whenever Jennifer is threatened by anyone, threats that are real or imagined. Jennifer is haunted by violent dreamscapes from her past.

Bob Mitchell teaches English at Roosevelt High and discovers on the opening day of school that Jennifer Davis in enrolled in two of his classes. Jennifer imagines a romantic connection between the two of them and when she feels rejected by Bob, Maleeva appears and seeks vengeance. Thus the central conflict in the story.